Big Grower July 2021 - 8

MANAGEMENT
Taking the Initiative
Even during a pandemic, the College Plant Initiative continues to grow new gardeners
and industry professionals.
BY SAMANTHA BURRELL
T
he Collegiate Plant Initiative (CPI) is an organization founded with
the goal to make people who love plants, specifically focusing on
college students. Throughout the American education system,
plants are often overlooked fueling the phenomenon known as plant
blindness, or the human tendency to ignore the plants around them. CPI
attacks this phenomenon head on with its goal to expose students to the
joy of plants and gardening.
CPI's roots come from the popular University of Florida class " Plants,
Gardening, and You, " taught by Dave Clark. Hundreds of students from
all majors enroll in Clark's class each semester. In this class, students
learn the basics of plant science, the fundamental skills to start their
own gardens, and what the future of plants could look like through plant
biotechnology. Students also test out their new skills on plants and seeds
they receive throughout the semester, along with gardening supplies such
as soil, pots, fertilizer and other gardening tools.
In 2017, students from this class teamed up with Clark to found CPI
and bring this immersive experience to more college students to spark an
interest in plants and combat plant blindness. From the very beginning,
they reasoned that if the plant industry needed better contact with college
students as a source of new industry talent, no one could do it better than
college students themselves.
CAPTURING OUR AUDIENCE
CPI started off addressing plant blindness with a spectacle that students
could not ignore: hosting massive plant giveaway events known as " Plant
Drops " on college campuses around the U.S. At each plant drop, CPI
brings 1,000 plants to a popular spot on a college campus and gives them
all away to college students for free at a pre-determined time announced
through CPI social media. As the clock counts down to the moment we
begin to give the plants away, hundreds of students gather in crowds and
learn how to care for their new plant and get more involved in the green
industry.
CPI gained recognition and notoriety with every successful plant drop;
students would place CPI stickers on their water bottles, share pictures
of the event on social media, and follow us on our own platforms of
Instagram and Facebook. CPI has successfully hosted plant drops at many
college campuses including University of Florida, Cornell, Penn State,
Ohio State and University of Michigan, to name a few.
News outlets began to report on our plant drops and amplify our
message to get college students interested in plants. In plant drops at the
University of Florida and Texas A&M, 1,000 plants found new homes with
college students in less than four minutes!
CPI was on track to begin a series of plant drops at colleges on the
West Coast in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic halted travel and
social gatherings. With our plant drop plans cancelled, we decided to
pivot to hosting virtual " Seed Drops " to continue to capture college
students' attention. Signup forms were made available on our website
and advertised through our social media channels. We were able to
8 JULY 2021
The Collegiate Plant Initiative was founded to help cure " plant blindness " and
help make college students more aware of the plants around them and what
they have to offer.
mail thousands of seeds to college students across the country to begin
their own gardens during quarantine and reap the emotional benefits of
gardening during a stressful time.
Despite the change from in-person plant drops to virtual seed drops,
CPI's social media following and engagement continued to grow. This
showed us that we could achieve the same goal of attracting more
followers and boosting meaningful engagement while reducing the
logistical planning of campus plant drops to a more streamlined and
universally available seed drop method. In this way, we are able to reach
more students at more universities than we ever could with in-person
plant drops, thus tapping us into our target demographic at a faster pace
than ever before. Although we missed the social interaction of visiting
college campuses, seeds have a better shelf life - and saved us a ton of
money on travel costs!
STARTING PLANT CONVERSATIONS
After gaining students' attention with our plant drops and seed drops,
CPI maintains student engagement through an active social media
presence on Instagram and Facebook. We continue to share posts on
plant care, industry trends and plant science news. Our most popular
installments have been #PlantMemeMondays, which embeds a piece
Big Grower July 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Grower July 2021
